By Miriam Gottfried

Is it OK to eat factory-farmed meat? Is vegetarianism the only ethical food choice? At the Manhattan JCC Monday night, novelist Jonathan Safran Foer and former New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni debated these food ethics questions—while struggling to identify a middle ground between their two opposing viewpoints.

The two men, both of whom have recently published books about their own personal food-related struggles—Foer’s about the decision to become a vegetarian and Bruni’s about his battles with eating disorders—spoke as part of a JCC lecture series.

And while the evening could have evolved into a prickly face-off between one of the New York’s most high-profile omnivores and one of its more recent converts to vegetarianism, the two authors took care to tread respectfully.

“We’re both writing about eating in a culture of plenty and a land of affluence,” Bruni said.

Foer’s book Eating Animals explores the stories Americans use to justify their eating meat-eating habits. Consuming factory-farmed meat is bad for the environment and perpetuates cruelty to animals, he argues.

“I don’t expect most people will read my book and stop eating meat,” Foer said.

Instead, he said he hoped his readers would pause to think about where their meat is coming from when they pick it up at the grocery store. The goal? To increase the number of vegetarian meals people consume.

“I think this argument has been framed as an absolute position,” he said. “You’re either a vegetarian or you’re not. That’s ridiculous.”

Bruni, whose book is called Born Round, countered Foer’s argument by saying affluent people must think about who might be affected when they advocate the end of factory farms. He also questioned whether humans can entirely ignore the pleasure they get from eating meat.

“Eating isn’t just a matter of politics. It’s a matter of culture,” he said. He later added: “I don’t buy that we owe animals the exact level of treatment we owe people.”

Foer agreed in principle, but said he is only advocating better treatment, not equal treatment.

“Why has taste become exempt from all of the other ethical rules we follow in every other area of life?” he asked.

Related posts:

1. Upper West Side: Bruni, Forer to Discuss Ethical Eating at Dec. 7 JCC Panel
2. Bruni’s Best: Let’s Agree to Disagree
3. Upper West Side: A Rosh Hashanah Cooking Lesson from the JCC